I have had a wonderful few days off. Yesterday I went surfing for the second time and it was a blast. I actually stood up and rode a wave! Woohoo! Today I am pooped from all the exertion. I miss Phill, especially after reading his emails and hearing his voice on the phone. I can't wait to see him in August.

Tomorrow is Independence Day. How blessed we are to live in a country that is free. We have so much more materially than people in some countries can even imagine. We should pray diligently for those soldiers, such as my brother Leonard, who keep our country what it is today.

Thank you God for allowing me to be blessed on this earth with your painted skies, smiling faces, and loving hearts...

Wow, am I excited to see what God has in store for me this summer. Thus far, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at the conference center. I love being able to work with children. It's like God himself is in their beautiful faces. I love their innocence, their ability to love unconditionally and their true faithfulness. Just to think of it makes me smile.

Yesterday, I went to Seaside and then to Ecola State Park. Ecola was sooooo beautiful. Andi and I walked high up on this walkway and we stood on this mountain and looked at the ocean and rocks below. There are binoculars and when I looked through them I could see tons of sea lions on the rocks and Tillamook lighthouse. Definitely a place to be married. Just being up there makes me think of God's sovereignty and His vast love for me.

I think I am going surfing today. Dave, who is a very nice guy from Montana, is willing to take me and teach me. I'm so excited!!! I've always wanted to be a surfer girl! :o)

Lord, I pray for my love who is so far away. I just ask that you would watch over him and keep him safe. Let him be a light to the youth that he is working with and just work miraculously through him. Be teaching his heart of your wonderful mercies and your unfailing love for him. Let him be brought up as your son, in your likeness, coming to the full knowledge of your power. Touch his heart with the love I have for him and my longing to see him serve you throughout eternity. I love you Father...

March 25, 2002



    Some time last week I was given a job position at a Christian conference center in Cannon Beach, OR. For the majority of my life, I have wanted to live near the ocean. It's as if the ocean has been beckoning me towards itself. Oh how wonderful to smell the salty sea air and to find comfort in knowing that I will always have a friend in the vast, blue waters. I find it somewhat odd that I would feel a kinship with the sea, yet all of the sailors that have come before felt the same. The ocean can be the source of all delightful calm and then at once it becomes a tempest, tossing anything in its wake down to the depths. What a marvelous mystery to revel within...

Lighthouse



    As I strolled in the midst of darkness, the biting chill heightened my senses as well as my emotions. The cold has its own way of slowing you down and forcing you to look to the very center of your being. And sometimes that center is not as strong as you wish it to be. Oh, faithful moon-how foolish it is of me to admire you so-how meaningless are my attempts to claim some of your beauty as my own. Sometimes I make myself believe that you can guide the path for my love and he will be delivered to my longing soul. How delightful a thought! Yet I am saddened by knowing that instead I must wait patiently for your very Creator to will it so. How jealous I am of romance and love. Why has it possessed me so briefly and why has it gone as quickly as it came? I have found my own solace and now I desire to share it with my love and shout it out to the world. Oh, I will wait until he comes, never being unfaithful to such a marvelous idea. And when he does, I shall soar as the beam of a lonely lighthouse soars across the sea.

Moby Dick -The Brit



    "Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.



    Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life."